


Ahsoka and the Captain

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Ahsoka's Nightmare [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Baggage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka finishes up business and talks to Rex some more. Of course, this just shows a few more cracks in who they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ahsoka and the Captain

With food devoured, and dishes put away, Ahsoka drew herself over to her covering gear, readying for going out into the night. She almost hated to; seeing Rex had stirred up so much inside her.

But she did not have choices anymore. She was the fulcrum of the Rebellion, leaning here and there to apply the leverage needed to break the Empire. With careful hands, she started dressing in the voice modulator, the scarves, and the concealing cloak.

"You'll be leaving soon, won't you? Back to Seelos, until the next run is needed?"

"Probably," Rex agreed, watching her moving, wrapping up again. "Once you have what you need... come back to the ship? You need treatment, and more time in trance." 

"And I need to protect your memory… so yes." She nodded slowly to that plan. "I get the fun of convincing some poor smuggler to part with his ship soon, I bet, because if I ask for yet another one…" She snorted. "Actually, I think I can grab a ride to a nearby system where somebody owes me a favor. That would probably be smarter."

She hadn't argued. Possibly because he'd asked? 

Whatever the reason was, he was going to take it. "All right. And you can probably grab that ride with us, depending on where you need to go..." 

She considered that, then nodded once. "I won't say no, Rex. I dislike convincing people to do me favors." She finished adjusting everything and switched the voice modulator on. "I'll see you in two hours at most, _vod_."

+++

Wolffe had only grunted at the idea of giving Ahsoka a ride to the next place, as it was a system on the way to Seelos. Rex was waiting for her near the hatch… and glad of it when she came up out of the shadows, arm wrapped around her side, and blood very obviously staining her robes.

"Most of it's not mine," she said, voice still modulated, but pain coming through it anyway. "Who kriffing told the Imps to carry vibro-shivs?"

Rex rumbled in exasperation and reached for her, offering his shoulder as a support as he helped her inside. "Kriff only knows, _vod_. Kriff only knows." 

She let him take more of her weight than he half-expected at first, letting him get her in and the ship sealed. She didn't protest being guided to where she could be stripped out of her gear, showing a nasty gash along her ribs where the armor stopped. The blade had even nicked the breast plate with a gouge, showing the attacker had gotten truly past her guard.

"Sorry to bleed all over your ship," she said, once he was working the armor off so he could treat that wound first.

He snorted at her, shaking his head, "As though we haven't? Don't worry about it, Ahsoka. At least it it's not deep, just messy." 

Now that he could get to the injury, he went to work on it first. She really ought to have a blood replacer, but he was certain their kit didn't have anything safe for her. But bacta worked on everyone (that wasn't allergic to it, anyway). Once he was finished with her side, he said softly, "Okay, now let me get at those burns, all right?" 

She hesitated only a moment, but she couldn't actually reach her lek in the rear easily. She closed her eyes, and gave him a silent nod at first before making herself answer.

"Please."

The number of people she had allowed to touch her lekku had been small enough before her capture. Since then, there had only been one that had been allowed, and she was far away from here now, if even alive.

"I'll be careful as I can," Rex told her, looking at the tension in her shoulders and hating, all over again, everything that had been done to her that she could be so uneasy of him. Those scars made him want to hurt something, but he pushed that out of his mind to focus on her. None of them looked infected, at least -- not that he expected them to, not on a _jetii_ \-- so that was one good thing. 

He applied an anesthetic carefully, then started to work on the burns. A third of the way through working and wishing he knew more to do, he realized again how much he missed Kix. It was just thinking about Tup that had brought Kix to mind. Had to be. 

"You're thinking about someone," Ahsoka said, feeling the blissful relief of pain, allowing her to relax somewhat. His hands were gentle and only touching as necessary, making that easier. "Who, if you wish to tell me?" She wanted to be mindful of separation with Rex; all the feelings he had stirred up by approaching her were in conflict.

It was not fair to reach too deeply into the friendship they had once shared, nor could she ever let herself admit long-buried emotions where he was concerned. She lived her life too dangerously, and had too many issues where the _Vod'e_ were concerned.

"Kix," Rex answered her, worrying at the tentativeness of her question. He was still so relieved to know she was alive, that she'd _survived_... "Seps took him, got away from us." 

"What?" Her voice had heat in it. Kix, in enemy hands? "Get me all the data on that? I can put a bounty out on information through one of my smuggler friends." She would move planets, if there was a brother out there in need. "If it should turn anything up, I'll get you the information, so you can get to him."

She couldn't trust herself to go for herself, but trusted Rex to manage it.

Rex agreed with her entirely about the whole kriffing situation, and nodded. "He... I think he had to have been following Fives' clues, and found it out, too. Only reason I can think of for them to have risked what they did to snatch him out from under us. They moved him to a kriffing _Providence_ -class -- must have learned something from us taking Tup back -- for _wherever_ they were going to take him, but the fleet hammered it pretty hard before they got out of the gravity well. It looked like one of the droids made a randomized jump. 

"I don't know what the General was cursing in, but it sounded like he was trying to strip the alloy off the bulkheads. I've got notes in a datapad, somewhere, just have to find it and get it to you." 

Ahsoka sighed softly at that, pain lashing through her at the mention of her former master. "If he is alive, and I can find anything about it, we'll get him back, Rex." She could not, would not fall into those nightmares in the back of her mind, the swirling violence and pain and anger that had threatened to swallow her so many times in her captivity.

He couldn't find words to respond to that. He and Wolffe and Gregor had been skating along the fringes for so long (unable to do anything but get by and help where they could) that he'd never even considered making an attempt to find the vanished ship. But if anyone could... Fulcrum just might. "Thank you, _vod_." 

"All of you were my friends. If I can repay anything of what you all gave me, I will," she told him. She then looked back at him, as she realized her central lek didn't hurt anymore. "Thank you, for the aid. So used to hurting that I'd forgotten what it felt like not to," she admitted softly.

"Not a good thing to forget," Rex pointed out, "but you're welcome, anyway. You should rest now, Ahsoka." 

"I will." She stood to go find a spot to curl up, taking her gear with her. She would sleep, and make her mind remember she was safe, even if there were two _Vod'e_ present. Neither would hurt her; Rex wouldn't let anything happen to her.

+++

The nightmare hit with full intensity, and Ahsoka was unable to resist its tide, even as she struggled to break the sleep on her. She whimpered and let out a whistling noise of fear, trapped by the past.

A presence outside the dream was what snapped her to consciousness, and only the fact she was bandaged and still blissfully numb stopped her from igniting the lightsaber, her shoto, that she had grasped from her pile of gear.

She saw Rex wisely standing at a distance, and blinked several times, trying to push the faces of the enemy aside, even as she focused on the tiny details that set Rex apart from them. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeper, and the hair was thinner. The scar was visible from this angle, the one that meant she was safe with him. He had to have stood at that angle on purpose, and it made her heart beat harder, to have that kind of care shown to her again.

She drew in a ragged breath, one that hitched too much like a sob, and pushed herself against the bulkhead, letting the cool metal add another point of soothing, with its security along her healing lek. 

"I'm aware," she said softly, to reassure him that she was thinking now, and not as dangerous to him.

"Glad to hear it, _vod_ ," Rex answered, watching her, the wild in her eyes slowly ebbing back out, and then he moved slowly closer. He meant to stop as soon as she looked even a little uneasy, but he couldn't just leave that distance between them when she'd been making those _sounds_. 

She focused on him even more, feeling that pull of what they had been, the camaraderie they had shared in so many battles, the history. "If you're not sleeping now, I wouldn't mind company," she invited. Part of her dreaded him saying yes, the part that didn't want to see any more people she cared for die. That part wanted the walls of loneliness and security measures between her and the whole galaxy.

"I'd be glad to stay with you," Rex answered, leaning back against the bulkhead next to her. She looked relieved and overwhelmed at once, and a little bit... unsettled. But then, she'd been alone a good long while. It couldn't be easy for her to be with him now, to have everything they had been suddenly right there again. 

She slowly worked her fingers over to where they could touch his on the floor, a hesitant step toward admitting that his presence was stirring all her emotions.

"Have I told you how grateful I am to know you were never caught up in that… in the… attacks? I grieved for the Jedi, but I grieved harder for the _Vod'e_ ," she admitted.

Rex wrapped his fingers around hers, light and gentle, and breathed out a quiet sigh. "Couldn't agree more. It -- the idea of -- " He swallowed against the nausea that had ridden him every time he thought of their General's obvious death. If his General was alive, he'd be fighting the monstrosity of the Empire. "And they're... have you seen the laser surgeries the Empire did? Stripping their tats?" 

"No tattoos. No art. No haircuts out of regulation." Her voice was flat and harsh, breathing gone ragged with memory of blank faces, eyes without souls glaring down at her. "It's horrific, Rex." She closed her eyes, as if that could cut away the images she would live with for the rest of her days.

"Yes," he agreed, kicking himself for reminding her. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka. I -- that my brothers lost everything is still... All I want, some days, is to figure out how to get onto Coruscant and kill the 'Emperor'." 

"You and me both, Rex," she said softly, but there was fear, and her fingers had tightened spasmodically on his. 

The Emperor would never be alone, and it would be _Vader_ there. Her nightmares of captivity were one thing, but her gut-deep fear of what her instincts told her about that Sith held her back from the direct approach.

"Shh, shh... it's all right," he murmured, that grip and the fear he could see in her twitching lekku. "Not going to commit that kind of suicide on you, _vod_." 

"Good, because I don't want to know the pain of losing you all over again, Rex," she said, betraying far more emotion than she would have liked, even as she dealt with the consequences of thinking about Vader. She reinforced the blocks in her mind, solid walls, all built around a very old bond.

"Same goes, Ahsoka," Rex told her, his fingers flexing lightly on hers. He'd lost her to that kriffing tribunal, then to the chaos of Order 66. He hadn't dared hope she was still alive, not until he'd seen the way their rescuer moved, the weapons she used... "Believe me, the same goes." 

"I sometimes wish I could run. Just take a ship and head for Wild Space," she told him. "Maybe learn how to forget." She turned her head to actually look at him. "But that's not me. I won't insult the _Vod'e_ that way. I won't turn my back on all they helped me become."

"No," he agreed quietly, "you never would. I'm pretty impressed, though. With what you've accomplished." 

With who she was to the Rebellion, he meant, but didn't want to actively say it. Not when that was something he was going to have to forget. 

"I've had guidance," she said. "And… a need. To atone. For leaving, for not being there for…" She cut her words off, biting at her lip. "It doesn't matter. I can't change what I failed at. I can only try and make a better place now."

He wanted to say she'd never had anything to atone for, it hadn't been _her_ that betrayed them... but the weights you took on yourself were always the heaviest. "That's all anyone can do."

She squeezed his fingers again. "I should fix that little thing, about who I am," she said, deeply reluctant to do so, but knowing she had to, for his sake. "Are you still alright with me doing that?"

"It's safer for both of us," Rex replied, turning to look at her. "So yeah. It's all right, _vod_." 

She shifted up onto her knees, turning to where she could bodily face him, her hands reaching up gently to his face. He could feel the slightest tremor as she did so, before warmth flowed from her fingertips through him, healing and soothing the tiny flecks of pain and fatigue from his recent mission.

~Just Ahsoka. Only Ahsoka. Another Rebel, just like you. Ahsoka is all there is.~

He leaned into her hands, watching her eyes as he tried to calm himself, to let her do what she needed to. It felt good, her touch gentle and encompassing. For a moment, despite himself, he held on to his knowledge, not wanting to lose it -- but she was right, Ahsoka did need to be all there was in his mind. Ahsoka, Rebel and fighter and _vod_ once again. 

~ _Vod_.~

The weight of that, the full depth of it, cracked and tore at Ahsoka's reserves, and she wavered in her dedication to her principles. Couldn't she just have him close… just one…

...images of others that had trusted her, stayed close, dying broke that half-thought, and she sealed the blocks in place, keeping Rex from knowing her true identity for the Rebellion. She pulled her fingers away as the warmth died away, watching him, to see if it was enough.

He shook his head slightly, confused about what had just happened... but he knew he was safe with his Commander. He would have liked her hands to stay there, that warmth had felt good, but... she needed to save her strength, not waste it on him. He was fine, after all. "You all right, _vod_?" 

She made a careful smile come to her lips, even as it felt like a lie. "Good, Rex. I might even sleep again." She wouldn't; safer to take a meditative trance this time, to avoid the nightmares, and she knew it. "You probably ought to get some too."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Hyperspace is a pretty good place to sleep. There _is_ actually a berth you could take, you know." 

"Never have been so good at using those," she reminded him. "But I'll go," she agreed, thinking of Wolffe, and his need for privacy and solitude. Slowly, she stood, then reached and took his hands, pulling him up to his feet. "Not used to being taller," she said, surprised all over again when he was below her height.

"It is strange," Rex agreed, amused at the easy way she lifted him. _Jetii_ strength still, along with all of her grace and composure. "But I guess we should've expected it." 

"There were a lot of things I expected or hoped for. But … life happens," she said regretfully, before taking her hands away and gathering her gear with a flick of the Force. "Show me a berth, Captain, so I can be out of Wolffe's way."

"Sure, Commander," Rex replied lightly, and moved to lead her through the ship to the berths.

**Author's Note:**

>  _vod_ = sibling  
>  _jetii_ = jedi


End file.
